This isn’t necessarily a novel concept – Instagram Ads have been around for a few years now. But before this, marketers were forced to engage directly with Instagram’s sales team to negotiate prices for limited ad space. This meant that the price to pay was a variable and opportunities became limited to only big brands with even bigger budgets.

Additionally, according to Hootsuite, one of the Instagram Ads API partners: “This integration will also make marketers and social-media managers more efficient as they will no longer have to switch between their phone and computer to track all aspects of a social-media campaign. For example, if a new product is launched, responses to comments and engagement with users on Instagram can be carried out from the same window that is being used to engage followers on Twitter and Facebook. Everything is in one place."

But it also continues the natural evolution of increasing the use of visual marketing to drive engagement.

No other platform can match the combination of simplicity and niche targeting that Instagram offers and it will be only a matter of time until advertising budgets are being shifted away from the more mainstream digital platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, in favor of a more visually compelling platform.